Cogito Ergo Sum
by archard-winchester
Summary: I think therefore I am. So I have been thinking 'Who am I? Oneshot. Sam trying to figure out who or what he is without his soul.


**Disclaimer:** I used to own supernatural, the boys, the Impala and everything else on the show. But then, the men in white gave me my meds and I had to take them.

**Summary**: I think therefore I am. So I have been thinking 'Who am I'? Oneshot. Sam trying to figure out who or what he is without his soul.

**A/N**: Sera Gamble said in one of her recent interviews that Sam won't be getting his soul back anytime soon, atleast not till after the winter hellatus. But, Dean will connect to this soulless Sam. This is my idea of how that happens.

* * *

"_So, is he even still Sam?"_

"_You pose an interesting philosophical question."_

_

* * *

_

Somehow balancing the packed food and coffees in one hand, Dean managed to get the motel room door open. Sam was on the bed sitting in front of a closed laptop, trying to look nonchalant and doing absolutely nothing.

"You find something on the case?" Dean asked, putting down the food on the table.

"Bupkiss." Sam replied. "Nothing in the town's history or obits. As far as I can tell, no deaths like these have ever occurred in this place before."

"Hm. You looking at something interesting in there?" Dean said pointing towards the closed laptop.

"This? Nothing. Just surfing." Sam replied.

"Porn?"

"Uh-huh." Sam nodded.

Dean sighed, tossing the keys on the table with their food. It was easier to tell when Sam was lying nowadays, kind of an upside of his not having a soul.

"Sam, we have talked about this before, remember?" Dean said, preparing himself mentally for the lies to come. "No secrets."

Sam huffed, opened his computer and turned it towards Dean. An open Wikipedia page, Dean realized as he moved closer to the screen.

"Soul." Dean read the header of the page out loud. "You are looking for your soul on the internet?"

"Funny." Sam replied. "I was just looking for some info on our whole situation here. I didn't tell you because I don't know what might set you off these days. I would like to avoid another beating, if I could."

Dean looked a little guilty at that.

"Sam, I'm not gonna beat you up for trying to find your soul. So, what you just googled soul and open the first thing that popped up?" Sam nodded. "Find anything in there?"

"On Wikipedia? Do we ever?" Sam countered. "Besides, I wasn't looking for a way to get it back, more like trying to figure out who you are without it."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, everything has a soul right? Even the things we hunt, demons, ghouls, vampires, you name it, they all have a soul." Sam explained. "That's because you can't live without it. Being alive is equivalent to having a soul."

"Right." Dean agreed. "Because a soul isn't something you have it's who you are."

"Exactly. Then who am I?" Sam asked. "I am not Sam. I'm not your brother. We both agree to that right?" Dean nodded. "So what am I? Am I some kind of machine or a zombie?"

"Maybe."

"I don't think that's right either." Sam said. "Even zombies have a soul behind them. They might not have a will of their own but someone is driving it. If that were the case I would be a total slave to Crowley. I wouldn't even be able to think about screwing him over, much less act on it. And I don't feel like a machine. I am capable of independent thought, new ideas and stuff like that. I may not be able to feel any emotions but I feel plenty. I have free will."

"You sure about that?" Dean asked. "I mean, how can you be sure that all that stuff just isn't force of habit?"

"I'm not exactly following Sam's habit here am I?" Sam answered. "It's just, I have all of Sam's memories, all his likes and dislikes, but the decisions I make feel like my own. Its like we are stuck in some sort of cheesy 60's movie."

"Come again?"

"You know, the kind of movies where a guy dies and someone else's soul takes over his body." Sam explained. "Then the heroine learns to love the new guy even though he isn't the old guy as much as he looks like it and the new guy learns to love the old guys life too. Kind of like that."

"Except the old guy is my brother." Dean said. "And you are not just some new guy, you are an empty shell."

"I know, but I don't feel empty. Okay, I feel empty when it comes to feeling things but I can still act on my own, make my own decisions." Sam said. "Sam is not here now, but somebody is. There is definitely an I. I exist. Then the question is, who am I and what will happen to me when Sam comes back."

"Wow." Dean exclaimed. "That whole doubt thing you have going on there almost makes it seem like you are human. I didn't know you cared about stuff like that."

"The only thing I care about is my existence." Sam replied. "I'm just wondering what will happen to me once Sam comes back. Will he exchange places and I'll go to hell? Or will it be like I suddenly forget everything that has happened over an year and only have memories of hell? Or maybe I'll have both the memories, remember all this as well as hell, but the decisions I make won't be the same anymore."

"Don't worry about it." Dean said. "You will be you, only less so."

"It's all your fault, you know that?" Sam turned towards Dean. "You are the most disconcerting person I know."

"I am disconcerting?" Dean said, outraged. "You are soulless and I'm the one that's disconcerting?"

"You have to realize this too Dean." Sam answered. "A year ago, everything was fine, I was hunting, and I felt better about it than I ever had before. I had other hunters with me whom I trusted. And I thought I was doing something big and good. Then you come along and within months I can't trust any of the Campbells any more, I find out that I'm working for a demon and I'm worried about my soul. Things were simpler back then. You have a way of making them complicated."

"Yeah? Then why did you beg me to come back?"

"Because I missed you." Sam replied. Seeing Dean's disbelief, he amended. "No, not exactly. I didn't actually care whether you were there or not. But I have all of Sam's memories. So I could remember feeling a lot better around you than not. I wanted to feel that. That's why I made you come back. And, even though that was a secondary reason, you are a great hunter. Over the year I hunted with the Campbells, I realized how much better than them you were. So I wanted you on my team."

"Are you just trying to reassure me?" Dean asked, quizzically. "We both know that you are a much better hunter than me. And probably all of the Campbells too. Even Bobby said that."

"I think he's wrong." Sam replied. "I mean, hunting is not supposed to be about killing as many things you can, it's about saving them. That's the only difference between us and the things we hunt. And most of the hunters forget where the line is. They may dance around it for a bit, but sooner or later they step so far out that they become puppets to the things they hunt."

"Really?"

"Take us for example, the Campbells and me, not you and me." Sam clarified. "We all thought we were doing good by catching those Alphas, but we were just being a demon's bitch. And we lost lives because of that. If we hadn't tried to capture the Alphas instead of killing them, Mark might still be alive, Christian might be a human and Sherry wouldn't have died."

"Sherry?"

"The girl who went with us on the Alpha-vamp hunt." Sam explained. "She was one my team. I saw a vampire get her and I could have helped, but I had a job to do. So, I let her die and went after the Alpha. You would never have done something like that."

"Damn right. Jesus Sam, what's wrong with you?" Dean asked getting up.

"Look, total honesty. Only reason I'm telling you." Sam shrank back. "I'd really prefer not being thrashed again."

"You can take me." Dean said, calming down. This isn't Sam, he told himself, it isn't.

"No, I can't. That's another thing." Sam sighed. "I mean, on paper, I should wipe the floor with you. I have the height and weight advantage. I have a better body. I exercise more. I think even my reflexes might be better than yours. And I can't hold back in a fight, I don't know how. So, logically, I should be able to kick your ass, but for some reason, you always come out on the top."

"Not always." Dean said, remembering the honeymoon suite in a hotel.

"Yeah, that was definitely demon blood." Sam replied. "Trust me, it wasn't just you, I could take on demons in hand to hand then. But then again, you can't blame me for all that stuff, because I'm not Sam."

Dean sat quietly, without answering as Sam's thoughts turned inwards. He wasn't Sam. He wasn't the brother Dean knew, the one Dean had raised. So who was he? Some novel creation? And what if Dean decided that he wasn't worth the trouble, the risk? Would Dean just kill him and preserve his body and then find some way to get the real Sam back? He might not care about much now, but if Sam coming back meant the end of his existence, he definitely didn't want his soul back.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" Dean said, waking him up from his thoughts. "I would ask Sam but I don't think he would be able to give me a straight answer. And since you have all of his memories - "

"And I won't care about your feelings to avoid hurting you." Sam finished. "Sure, go ahead."

"What happened with us? I mean where did I go wrong?" Dean said. "And I'm not just talking about after I came back from hell. Something didn't sit right since we were kids."

"Wow, you don't pull any punches, do you?" Sam replied. "Well, if I had to put it into words, I would have to say that I thought that you were weak and I resented the hell out of you for that."

"Since when?"

"Since we were kids. Don't get me wrong. You were a very strong spirited person, I knew that." Sam explained. "When you set your mind to something, there wasn't anything that could stop you. And you could always handle almost anything life threw at you, you were very strong like that. But I also thought that you let everyone just walk all over you. I mean, Dad had our whole life planned for us and I wanted to break free, but you just accepted it as your destiny."

"So this was about hunting?"

"Sort of. You know, I used to think of you as my cool, brave big brother who just did what he wanted and screw life. Then I realized that you just did what everyone else wanted, Dad, me, any one. So the scales kind of fell from my eyes. I mean everyone has kind of a pattern set to their life, something that guides them to their fate, and I the people I admired most were the ones who broke the pattern. Like my teacher who chose to be a teacher instead of his family business. Like me, when I got out of hunting. I guess I went with Ruby instead of you because I felt that she broke the pattern to being a demon and you couldn't break out of yours. You were just gonna follow your destiny and angels to wherever that led. But I was wrong."

"You think so?"

"C'mon Dean, you are the biggest pattern breaker there is. You are the one great fuck-you in the face of destiny." Sam said. "I mean I was following my destiny all along, but you were able to break free from yours. What's more, you were able to free me from mine. A millennia of prophecies and planning into the apocalypse and you were the only person who could derail it all. If I respected outliers, you were the one I should worship."

"You were the one who got Lucifer."

"We both know that without you, I would have said yes for much different reasons and without you, I wouldn't have been able to overcome him."

"Are you trying to make me feel better?" Dean asked, confused.

"No soul, no empathy. Remember?" Sam replied. "Just trying to tell you the way I used to think."

Dean nodded, accepting Sam's words.

"So what about now?" He asked. "You feel the same way?"

"I don't care about this stuff now." Sam explained. "I know that you are a great hunter who will protect me at any cost because without me you have no chance of getting your brother back. I know that you will keep me from doing something bad, so that I don't become the hunted. And I hope that someday I would start feeling around you the way Sam felt. The kind of feeling that was better than any drug. But I don't think that will happen until I get my soul back and now I'm not sure whether the person feeling that would be me or Sam."

"Didn't know this stuff bothered you that much." Dean said.

"It doesn't. I just find it - "

"- disconcerting?" Dean finished. Dean looked at the man sitting in front of him. Most of the time this thing- this soulless creature- was so far away from being his little brother that they didn't even look alike anymore. But there were moments, few and far in between, when Dean could see a flash of old Sam. Like when they were on a hunt and Sam figured out the answer before Dean. Or the face he made when Dean ordered a double steak burger at the diner. Or like when his eyes lit up every time Dean gave up the driver's seat to him. Dean didn't know how much of it was real and how much imagined or faked. Maybe he was having second thoughts about getting his soul back, but this thing wasn't all stranger to him.

"Researching, huh?" Dean said, looking down at the laptop. "You know, that's one of the first things Sam would do when confronted with a problem."

"You point?"

"My point is, you are Sam." Dean explained. "I know I have been saying you are not my brother, but you are. You may be broken or incomplete, but a part of him is still there. The decisions you make, they are all possible for Sam. I don't know- maybe you have some sort of connection to your soul that's keeping you functional. But I know that you are not some other entity. I know my brother well enough to see him in you behind all the habits and memories."

"Are you just trying to make me feel better?" Sam asked. "It doesn't work that way."

"Just telling the truth." Dean replied.

Maybe he was Sam, after all, Sam thought. He could remember having made similar decisions in past. His thought process certainly hadn't changed. So maybe he was Sam. Incomplete and hollow, but still Sam.

* * *

I wrote this story before watching the latest episode. I'm glad that my supposition that Sam still has a connection fits. As the Leprechaun said, Sam's soul was still within grasp. Still, its not the same, is it?


End file.
